Tag Archive

On the evening of Sept. 10 I shared the Annual Report of the church at a lovely dinner gathering of church leaders. If you would like a peek, you can find it here. I’m tickled that we produce an annual report because it’s good to pause and look back and …

Away. There is something really great about getting away. It isn’t just taking a break, but also finding some perspective, or finding a way to do life with more vigor, more grace. The away time not only refreshes but provides perspective on what is working, what isn’t and what way …

Why Preach, Why Listen is the title of a book I read many years ago. But the title still haunts me. Why do I preach and why do you listen? It isn’t to be “preachy,” which has become a negative word that conjures up a haranguing of sorts, where …

There is a story about Leonardo da Vinci… Early in his career he was painting a picture of Christ and found a beautiful young male to model for his portrait of Jesus. Many years later, Leonardo was painting a picture that included Judas. He walked through the streets of Florence …

It’s as much art and luck as it is science and skill. I’ve spent 26 years both teaching it in my professional role and practicing at it in my private life and it still confounds me at times. When it works well, it feels like a holy miracle. And when …

What if the land could talk? What if you could stand at the corner of 61st and Ward Parkway and listen to the stories that the earth witnessed? The soil could speak to us about the blood shed upon it during the Civil War. During Battle of Westport, the Confederate …

I had never really thought about it this way. I knew the stories but had not put them together in a pattern. But recently I read that repeatedly in the story of Jesus, the people who are closest to him erect barriers around him to keep others out. They push …

“Who loves you Judah?” the father asked his 20 month old son as he tucked him into his crib. “G-ma, Poppy, Granny… and Ella,” Judah exclaimed with glee as he remembered the face of his six- year-old cousin Ella, whom he had met only four hours earlier that day at …

I am on a plane to Detroit. It is time for the bi- annual Ehman family reunion. We have now swelled to 39 folks including my husband’s three sisters, their spouses and all their kids and grandkids. The favorite family activities are coffee drinking and morning walks. But there will …

It’s the time of year when folks publish lists called “Great Beach Reads.” I’ve never quite figured out what a beach read is. But I always think, if it’s not good enough to read at home, then I don’t want to waste my time on the beach reading it! However, …

Today as I write, our high school mission team sits exhausted and exhilarated on a plane home from Ecuador. Watching their posts on Instagram and Facebook this week I was carried back to memories of my first international mission trip to Guatemala when the scales fell from my eyes and …

“At arrival of gratitude, theology slid away like a heavy coat.” -Leif Enger, Virgil Wander I love three things about this quote. First, I love that gratitude arrives. It’s hard to force gratitude. You can practice politeness and teach folks to say “thank you” but the deep awareness that life …

Faith is both taught and caught.We learn the stories of Jesus and the moral principles that set us on a road called faith. And we occasionally experience “something more” that grips us with a deeper kind of knowing. Millions of pilgrims travel to the holy land each year in search …

The early morning walk along the Mediterranean Sea and the mosaics in the floor of the 5th century synagogue were stunning. But the image that stands out in my mind after our first full day in Israel is the “tel.” Tel means mound and we visited Tel Megiddo where 25 …

When I arrived at Divinity School I met the Dean of Students, Joan Forsberg. She was kind of the campus miracle worker. She could figure out a registration knot or repair a financial aid glitch or help you solve a vocational crises. Both students and faculty relied on her to …